


The way you look at me

by ssrhpurgatory



Series: Pre-canon ficlets and snippets [4]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27958211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory
Summary: Nebulously set some time after chapter 20 of Missives from the Black, based on the prompt "I've seen the way you look at me when you think I don't notice."
Relationships: Alexander Hilbert/Original Female Character
Series: Pre-canon ficlets and snippets [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047574
Kudos: 1





	The way you look at me

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Missives from the Black](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21509380) by [ssrhpurgatory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory). 



“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”

That's what Rosemary imagines saying to Dr. Kelley sometimes. 

A microbiology lab is full of reflective surfaces, and even when you don't think the person you're looking at can see you, they can sometimes see your reflection.

Rosemary has seen Dr. Kelley’s reflection more than once, giving her a mournful, longing look. The sort of look you give something or someone you greatly treasure, when you think no one is looking. The sort of look that says, louder than any words could, “I wish you were mine, but I know I cannot have you.”

Rosemary doesn't know what to do with a look like that, not from Dr. Kelley. Not any more. Because first and foremost, she has to be his lab manager, and because the first love in his life will always be his work, will always be his virus. Because they had already tried once to make it work, and it had been too much, too encompassing, and would have only lead to their ruin, in the end. 

Rosemary doesn't know what to do with the fact that she's pretty sure she still looks at him the same way, even though she shouldn't any more. 

“I have seen the way you look at me when you think I don't notice.”

Karl tries the words out, trying to imagine what would happen if he said them to Rosemary’s face. 

She would laugh them off, he was sure. She had dismissed him to his face once already; even a year later, that rejection still stung. 

No, not stung; that was too gentle a word for the aching, throbbing hurt he felt, even now, when he thought of her cold, assessing gaze, looking him over and dismissing him as meaningless. The thing that had been seared into his brain above all the rest was this: her face, cold, emotionless, the tilt of her head, the examining gaze, the way she'd said “Whatever for?” in response to his assertion that he'd come back the next night, as if the three weeks he'd spent in her bed meant nothing, as if they'd never even existed. 

But sometimes Karl would be taking notes on his projects in one of their meetings and would glance up to find an expression of such startling fondness on Rosemary’s face that for a moment he forgot the hurt, forgot everything but the fact that for three weeks he had let himself love this woman more than he had ever loved another person in his life. 

It only ever lasted a moment, that look Rosemary gave him. A fraction of a second, and then her expression smoothed out into the cool friendliness she did so well, and Karl was left wondering if he'd imagined it. 

He did not think he had. 

But he was too much of a coward to find out what would happen if he was mistaken. 


End file.
